Venerable Yin Shuns expertise and writings in
Buddhism have been widely acknowledged by the Chinese Buddhists this century. The
"Miao Yun Collection" written by the Venerable provides us with important
information and a systematic approach to Buddhism, giving us a better insight and
understanding of Buddhism. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the Triple Gem,
and hope that more people may benefit from the Venerables writing.

In Australia, there are very few English books on
Mahayana Buddhism. In order to introduce the Buddhas teachings to Westerners,
members from the University of New South Wales Buddhist Society, the Sydney University
Buddhist Society and the Hwa Tsang Monastery Inc. thought about translating the Mahayana
sutras and texts, and chose Venerable Yin Shuns work as the choice of translation.
The collection of this translation will be called "Selected Translations of Miao Yun
Part I".

We have selected and translated eight articles from
five books in the Third volume of the Miao Yun Collection; namely "The Dharma is the
Saver of the World", "The Three Essentials in Practising the Teaching of the
Buddha", "The Buddha lives in the world", "To investigate the Dharma
according to the Teachings of the Buddha" and "My view on Religions". Some
of these articles were translated before and were collected in the book "A
Translation of Works by Venerable Yin Shun", published by the Mahaprajna Buddhist
Society, Singapore.

We apologise for not being able to contact and
consult the original translators but we have obtained the approval from the original
publisher, Venerable Hao Zhong, and edited these articles in accordance with the interests
of Western readers. To aid readers, we have chosen to translate according to the meaning
instead of direct translation in some circumstances.

This is our first attempt in translation and it is
possible some passages may seem difficult to understand. Your advice would be most
appreciated. To ensure the consistency of the translated works and the original articles,
and to ensure the fluency of the translation, we have repeated the process of editing and
proofreading several times. We have also invited an Australian Buddhist, Mr. Kiddle to
assist us in this aspect.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank
Venerable Tsang Hui for his guidance and encouragement, Mr. Khoo Cheang Jin for his
design, and Mr. Mick Kiddle, Mr. Chai Gao Mao, Mr. Mok Chung, Mr. Lin Yang, Mr. Beng Tiong
Tan and other members for assisting in the translation. We would also like to thank
Venerable Xing Ying, Mr. Xu Yang Zhu and Mr. Guo Zhong Sheng for their proofreading and
suggestions, and Mr Gregg Heathcote and Mr. Simon Paterson for refining the articles.

It is hoped that with the publication of this book,
more Buddhists who are well versed in both English and Chinese will take the initiative to
participate in tasks like this, so that more people may benefit from the work of Venerable
Yin Shun and hopefully appreciate and practise Mahayana Buddhism.